


Goat Song

by Rana Eros (ranalore)



Category: Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Genre: BDSM, F/M, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ranalore/pseuds/Rana%20Eros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite the name, Satine's old patron can't save this tragedy.  Better to call him Charon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goat Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/gifts).



He first met the rising star of the Moulin Rouge when she was seventeen and already a consummate professional. Her costumes were adorned with fur, silk, and jewels, and she carried herself as though they were only her due, graceful and distant. Not unattainable, of course, but it was clear in the image of luxury that she and Harold had jointly created that attainment cost dearly. The Count could afford it, and he was curious to learn if Mademoiselle Satine was worth the price.

She was indeed, not balking when he requested an assignation in the Gothic Tower, not demurring when he explained what he wanted her to do. She was imperious and gorgeous in black leather, her hair like a spill of fresh blood down her back. She swung the whip with expert technique, three lashes across the top of his buttocks, then her fist in his hair as she spoke into his ear.

"I can see you enjoyed that. Would you like more? Higher up your back, perhaps, so that the corset I saw you removing will press against the welts. Then you'll remember what we did tonight every time you move for the next several days."

Oh, yes, she understood him well. In the end, though, he didn't understand her well enough. He offered her a place as his mistress, but she had dreams of eventually becoming an actress, and refused him.

He only visited Paris in early summer, so he did not see her again for a year. That year had been kind to her. She'd grown more beautiful, more prominent in the hierarchy of the Moulin Rouge, and her performances were drawing in greater crowds to indulge in everything else Moulin Rouge had to offer as well.

While Satine was delighted to see him, or at least feigned it well enough, there was never any question that she'd accept his offer. Nonetheless, he made it again, and again the next, and again the next, and again the next.

Then, in the summer of 1900, he came to the Moulin Rouge to find Satine changed. She was still beautiful, still sparkling, still Moulin Rouge's star, but the Count was well enough acquainted with death to know its precursors in the pallor of her skin, the shortness of breath and sudden coughing, the fainting spells.

He tried a different approach. "My dear Satine," he said, trying to be as delicate as possible. "I am concerned for your health. I would be happy to have you in the care of my personal physician, he is very sk--"

She had only laughed and said, "Dear Count, you make it sound as though I am ailing indeed! It has only been a damp year, which always causes me to cough, and these silly costumes _will_ make it difficult to catch one's breath. I'm fine!"

Her laughter was brittle, her words over-bright, and now he really did know her well enough to know what fear looked like in her sparkling eyes. He knew what that sparkle meant, too, and if she was taking such measures to control the pain, she had to know she was sick. But she didn't want to acknowledge it, so he said only, "Well, if you find you need a rest from the bustle of Paris, send to me and I will make you welcome at my country house."

After that, he left the Moulin Rouge without plans to return the following year. She wouldn't be there to refuse his offer.

He stayed in Paris a few days more, entertained himself with lesser pleasures, but much of the charm of the city had palled when he realized Satine was dying. Apparently, he'd been foolish enough to fall in love, and the object of that love had no interest in allowing him to ease her suffering in her last days, and now he would have to deal with that rejection, which was not quite the same as all the ones before.

He went home, to his villa and the photography studio he was constructing in one wing. It was rather hopeless not to imagine what beautiful tableaux he might construct with Satine as his central model: Aphrodite in her various attitudes of love, Titania in her bower, the seductive Melusine. Perhaps he should have paid some attention to what other young beauties sold their charms in the brothels of Paris. He really was going to need models, at least one beautiful woman and one beautiful man, if he was going to manage the images he wanted.

He attempted to make use of local stock, but portraits of the French rural class were not really his intention in taking up the new art form of photography. He travelled to the nearest villages seeking better options, but while some merchants' daughters were very pretty, and some craftsmen's apprentices were beautiful, it wasn't enough. Satine had an actress' gift, a presence that drew the eye, an ability to inhabit a different persona. The Count needed that. Perhaps, if he asked her only as a paid model, she would be willing to be his guest for a short time, and he might convince her to stay longer after she was already here.

He had just decided to tell his servants to prepare for another short trip to Paris when he received a letter from Satine. It had obviously been written and sent in haste, but the message was clear enough. Satine had left the Moulin Rouge for good. She was coming here, with the young poet she loved, and she hoped the Count would forgive the imposition. _You were right, and I am dying after all. There is more which makes me fear for Christian's safety if he doesn't accompany me. You will love him, I am sure. I remember your taste in these matters._

For a moment, the Count was so angry at her presumption that he considered not being in when she and her paramour arrived. She denied him until on her deathbed, and now she wanted him to play host to the man she had given what she would never give him! But it was only a moment. The Count was not much given to self-deceit, and he had no doubt Satine remembered his taste very well. He wanted to meet her poet, especially when she had already given her blessing to seduction, if he felt so moved. It was as much a gift as a request for favor, the last gesture she could make to him, and she knew he knew it.

The letter had arrived on the early train, and said Satine and her Christian would come on the next, due this afternoon. So the Count called his servants together after all, to make ready for guests whose stay would be indefinite. Then he sent a letter of his own, summoning his favored doctor and that doctor's supply of laudanum and morphine. Satine, at the least, would need it.

He considered taking his carriage down to meet the train, but given the haste of the journey, Satine might prefer some privacy to prepare Christian for their new lifestyle. So when the time came, he sent his coachman off alone, and retreated to his studio to wait. He had spent so many hours imagining how he would pose Satine, how he would stage the scene to take advantage of the light at certain hours, how he would dress her, what props would best call attention to her unearthly beauty. He wondered how her poet compared, what scenes might be built around them both, whether there was a fascinating contrast or lovely harmony in their looks. He had famous lovers aplenty to choose from, though most of their stories were tragic.

Of course, so was this one. Satine knew it, which was her whole purpose in coming here. The Count wondered if Christian knew it, if Satine had told him and if he'd believed her about the impossibility of survival. Already, the Count thought he might have a sense of Christian's personality. Poets who fell in love with prostitutes had certain common tendencies, and the Count had paid enough attention over the years that he thought he could name Satine's taste in these matters, as well. Her Christian was likely to cling to hope until she exhaled her last, gasping breath, and then he would throw himself into despair as though he had never known anything else.

Honestly, the Count wasn't sure what Satine thought he could do about that; he was well-versed in pleasure, and what he felt for Satine herself might be love, but to Christian he was a stranger. Did she think Christian could be wooed away from mourning by the lifestyle of nobility, or the profane joys of love with another man? Surely not, or she'd never have given her heart to him.

The sound of a throat clearing at the door drew his attention to his butler who said, "Your guests have arrived, Your Excellency. I've shown them to the drawing room and had their luggage taken upstairs. Shall I have tea sent in?"

"Yes. Have the doctor sent in when he arrives, as well. That will be all."

"Very good, Your Excellency."

The Count took another moment after his man had left to compose himself. Satine's letter had said she feared for her Christian's safety, and perhaps that was her reason for bringing him here. The Count could provide protection; more, in fact, than he had ever intimated to Satine. And if that was not all, she was here now, to tell him. He left his studio to see what she would tell.

He slowed his approach to the drawing room at the low murmur of voices. Satine sounded breathless, but attempting to be soothing. Christian sounded agitated and worried. The Count couldn't make out the words, but he thought perhaps Christian was asking what ailed Satine, and why they had come here. Her answer to both was to sing, though she had little voice to do it with. Then her Christian took over, and without yet meeting the man, the Count knew why he was the one who could claim Satine's heart. The Count wanted to be so claimed.

He waited in the corridor until the singing stopped; he could not do otherwise, basking in the love carried by that voice. Would he ever have such love from this man? Maybe that was what Satine hoped, that in introducing her poet to a man who was very like her, she might leave him with something more than painful memories of a dead love. The Count found himself all too willing to aid her cause, if that were the case.

The song came to an end, and the Count composed himself once more to greet his guests. He entered the drawing room to find Satine seated, looking pale but calm. Her Christian was on one knee beside her chair, holding her right hand in both of his, staring intently up at her face. The Count wanted to pose them just so in the studio, but he realized with alarm it was not as Romeo and Juliet, or any couple, tragic or happy. It was as Orpheus begging Persephone to restore his lost love, a plea that would ultimately lead only to his own destruction.

Both lovers had looked up at his entrance into the room. Christian stood and leant Satine a gallant hand, but the Count waved the gesture away. "Don't stand on ceremony. You've just had a long journey from Paris. Sit down, tea is coming, and you may refresh yourselves before the doctor arrives."

"Doctor?" Christian asked, alarmed. "What doctor?"

So she had not told him. The Count waited for Satine to ask guilelessly, "Yes, my dear Count, what doctor?" She remained silent and still, holding Christian's hand but not rising from her chair.

"Satine?" he asked this time, and she looked up at him, and she was radiant with love, eyes shining, smile pure and full, and she was dying.

"I imagine the doctor is for me, my love. I am dying, you see."

That sent Christian back to his knees, and the Count found himself fighting the desire to offer comfort where it would certainly not be welcome now.

"Dying," Christian repeated. "Are you--I mean, what can be done?"

"We are doing it. The doctor will come. He will have something for the pain, perhaps some suggestions of how not to strain my lungs, but it won't really make a difference in the end. There is no cure for what I have."

"So you're just going to give up?" She tried to speak his name, but he pulled away from her and stood up, looking directly at the Count for the first time. Oh, Satine had remembered his tastes in every detail, and Christian suited them indeed. "Why are we here, Satine? What is your dear Count going to do for us?"

"Satine has at last accepted a years-long invitation to visit my home, and I am happy to make you welcome as her travelling companion. As your host, I mean to see to both your comfort and entertainment."

"Satine came to you to die!"

"Yes." Satine didn't raise her voice, still didn't stand, but the force behind the word caught at them both. "I came to die. I also came so that Christian would not die, at least not at the hands of a brigand hired by the Duke because I refused him. I came because I did not want to spend my last days fighting with Harold and hiding from the Duke and fearing for Christian's safety every time he was out of my sight." She looked at Christian, and raised her chin imperiously. "You made me fall in love with you. I'm a selfish woman, and now I want to keep you as long as I can. But I also want you to be happy, and I think you would have let yourself die in a Parisian gutter once I died. This is the alternative I had to offer."

Christian was silent and still for so long, just staring at Satine, who met him look for look, that the Count could hear the tea service being wheeled down the back hall. He considered stepping out to stop any servant from stumbling on this uncomfortable tableaux, but then Christian said, his voice shaking, "Will this alternative make you happy?"

"I want you here, with me. I do not want you to die. I want you to allow yourself the chance to live and love again."

"I won't--"

"I will love you 'til my dying day," she sang, then spoke, "We both know we can't promise more than that."

In that moment, Christian looked nearer his dying day than Satine, and the Count could see, very clearly, how this would go. Christian would pose for his photographs, would allow himself to be seduced, would become addicted to the morphine making Satine's last days tolerable. And once Satine had breathed her last, Christian would leave the Count's house, perhaps for that Parisian gutter Satine feared, perhaps for the Seine itself, sinking down into it in the arms of the green fairy. He might even run afoul of the men Satine's mysterious Duke meant to kill him.

Or he might stay, the lure of morphine a soft death of its own. The Count could regulate his deterioration, then, perhaps long enough to restore him to his senses. He didn't think it likely, though, and when he turned his attention to Satine, he saw that she knew it. Her quick glance at him, before at last rising and gathering Christian into her embrace, said quite clearly what she expected the Count to do for Christian.

She did not want him to die in a Parisian gutter, so she had brought him to a man she knew would want to hold him in his final moments. Whether Christian would want to be held by his corrupter didn't seem to matter, but then, it wouldn't to Satine. The Count knew what it said about him that he didn't care, either.

But there was still time before that bleak end. Satine was still alive now, and could give comfort to Christian as she took it from him. The Count had no doubt she had a plan for introducing Christian to his brand of comfort, as well, but that could keep for the moment.

"I will make sure you are not disturbed for as long as you wish," he said to Satine. Christian seemed past hearing. "Only ring the bell and my servants will show you to your rooms, or bring you refreshment as you need. I'll keep the doctor occupied until you're ready to see him."

"Thank you again, Count, for your kindness," Satine said, once again the consummate professional well-versed in social graces.

He gave her a brief bow and said, "It is ever yours, Mademoiselle," just before shutting the drawing room doors, leaving himself on the outside to deal with the mundanities.

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write a story about Arabia, but quickly realized I didn't even know enough to make a proper start, nor did I have time to do even the minimum research before the stories were due. So I'm holding onto that one for an NYR, when I have more time to not perpetuate racefail.
> 
> In the meantime, I couldn't make Count Von Groovy quite as wild as the name implies, but since the end of the movie is pretty firmly in Orphean myth territory, and that isn't a myth that ends well, I thought it best to go where the story led me. Hopefully, the result is workable, if not uplifting.


End file.
